Aug 22 Self-reflection (The Tenets of Jesus part 3)

Another "tenet", if I may, is that of self-reflection. If you believe in Jesus, i.e. that He was more than just human, or just a human (they sounded like two different things prior to being typed out). And if you believe on Jesus (in/on, the preposition doesn't really matter) as the Saviour of your spirit, enabling you to become once again right with God—because He always was and therefore endured the wrath of His Father for us—where do you or I even enter the picture? Where does the concept of free will or personality or any of the beautiful, simple and childlike things that make us who we are, come in to play? For me, there has always been this gnawing to become more than what I was before, because I've always had a hard time being satisfied with myself. I suppose it was because I wasn't vaulting from a true place. And so, any dispassionate self-reflection produced despair or confusion or despondency, until I then realized I wasn't seeing myself as He (Jesus) saw me. Two things before I go any further: Firstly, I apologize for talking down to you in introducing this tenet. Because, if I may, you yourself have most likely touched upon yourself as an entity at some point in your life. Someone (as opposed to some thing) in and amongst a bunch of others who are similar-to-you-yet-radically-different. And you'd have it no other way, right? Whenever I find I'm akin to someone more than I originally thought, it was after the fact and if it's true, it wasn't what I was looking out for, it that makes sense. The second thing is that I'm most likely not going to introduce anything God hasn't already made known to you in some way, for yourself. One of the things I've long fought with is this idea I should (and therefore could) receive any and everything I wanted and needed from God Himself.

Self-reflection is necessary, vital even. I see the word(s) in my mind's eye (self-reflection) and I just know I have something to say on it. As a writer, I'm finding it difficult to extend my mind out to whatever sounding board I feel needs to hear this in order to make a valid point and speak to them (you). That's what a writer does by the way. They have something to say to someone—even themself (not a word)—and they talk or write longhand or type. How many authors made it after they'd passed away, by the way? They thought no one wanted to hear what they had to say, thereby substantiating that gift. Offering the writer, by way of attention, a form of validation. But if I class myself as a writer first and foremost and receive all the accolades along those lines only, I will end in missing the substrate fact that I'm a human, a spirit, with a gift of writing. Jesus comes first. This is why any self-reflection must begin with Him (That's really all I have to say on the matter.). This is why I was never satisfied with myself, always wanting more. One must realize what He has done for them before any self-reflection can tell and form and build up from the bottom. Your gifts, whatever they may be, aren't who you are. You are the righteousness of God in Him (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). If I may.

"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in Him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Philippians 3:8-11)